Eleody French
I am sober, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
I wish for you to experience Diamond Beach. You’ve never seen the sun so bright before, sand sparkles through the peaking shrubbery window as you walk the thin gravel path. The ocean speaks clearly to you now; its beautiful clapping for your arrival and distant laughter are carried by the salty breeze. Inhaling, you take in the rich scent of the sea salt and distant eucalyptus. As you walk along the waves, the glistening white and blue water looks like its own galaxy. There’s no other place where you could see the day and night embracing as tenderly as you could here. You’re walking closer to the laughter you heard before, it’s three teenage girls sitting in a circle. They’re picking up the crunchy sand planks and crunching them by their ears. It’s a cute sight, young women in bikinis still playing with sand. Curiosity takes you as you slow your pace to listen to their chatter.
“I almost passed out last night, it was so scary.”
Teenagers and their drinking. You remember your first drink at a party. The sanitating taste on your lips, the burn to your throat and the confusion as to why people liked it.
“I did that when my mom took away my razor.”
By slowing your pace you’ve found yourself standing beside them. Societal standards dictate that you move on without gawking at the teenage girls. Despite this you turn, only allowing yourself a moment read their story on lines and legs.
I kept speaking that day, as I did when anyone attempted to interpret my pages.
“I have a clean sharpener at home, it’s safer if you use a tool you’re familiar with.”
You turn towards the gravel path, you think you can hear one of us call you a ‘fuckin tourist’ over thong plops and disappearing laughter. The leather of your car is sun warm. Hair sticks to the head rest as you take deep breaths, just like mummy taught.
I am sober 0 days 14 hours 50 minutes 35 seconds
In year eight of high school I made two friends, Leggy and Genie. We had regular teenage girl things in common like true crime and horror movies. But the real thread of our relationship was self-harm. I met Genie on our first day of school, we had both skipped the first week after transferring the previous year. In P.E, when the new student fascination wore off, I gave her highlighter tattoos. The bright yellow ink melted into her white skin, it left pigmented streaks on the natural divots of her, like I was painting constellations. The neon constellation revealed a thin scar Milky Way. She grabbed her arm trying to hide her universe, pulling her navy-blue uniform jumper down to the tips of her fingers.
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Her eyes began shaking before her body did and I made the face I still make today when I want to tell a bad joke. It’s the look a clown gives before it tells you it killed JFK. I hiked up my skirt, showing deeper lines baked into the crust of my thigh.
“I do it too.”
I learned that Leggy was in club cutter the same way I found out most people were in club cutter, the stationery aisle of K-mart. We went after school to get a pen; it was a regular boring afternoon in our town, with regular boring conversations. But Leggy got quiet looking at the pencil sharpeners. She looked at it the same way the executor looks at the axe. Everything was frozen until my clown bell jingled.
“You cut?” I wasn’t asking, it was a statement.
“Dude what the fuck, yea LMAO.” She said ‘la-maow’ out loud.
She told me she was buying a new one because hers was getting rusty, I told her purchasing a new blade was a great idea, and that I should get a clean one too. We left a trail of giggles and iron stink through the self-checkout.
I am sober 0 days 12 hours 5 minutes 8 seconds
I always loved watching Leggy read over my phone. With Genie back in her bottle in Brisbane, our trio became a duo. We sat together under the shade of a tree eating our lunches. Her lips would flutter, and eyebrows would squint when she got to a part that was so exciting I should expect a retelling. I wanted to ask her expert opinion on the novel we would be reading in class, ‘Destroying Avalon.’ Leggy was in two English classes higher than mine, and I knew she read the novel based on the purple cover art of a teenage girl crying at a brick PC. When the bell rang her face was vacuum sealed to her skull, she shooed me off with her nose in novel, so I shooed to English class.
After three chapters I shut the novel with a look of someone who just stepped on a corpse topped with wet dog shit. I was thankful I left Leggy vacuum sealed, she would love this awful novel and I would’ve have to let her down.. Her face was so expressive, unlike ‘Destroying Avalon’; you sympathise with her instantly, unlike main character Avalon, and I loved her, totally unlike ‘Destroying Avalon.’ That’s why my heart sank when she came skipping out of her English room.
“Everyone in year nine is reading my favourite novel!”
Returning to the shady lunch break tree we debated the novel over sandwich bites. I felt that it was melodramatic, didn’t give the reader any reason to believe it. It was presented as reality, and it should be grounded as such.
“You can’t just go around writing sloppy shit about real shit, it’s fucked up.”
I licked a margarine coated devon piece from my braces. Leggy sat with the argument, she was a young woman told many times that she would make a great lawyer one day. In her eyes was a mini Leggy filing her case notes and tucking her tie.
“I just liked the story. I felt seen ya know?”
She was a good lawyer, she knew to use my love for her against me to destroy my argument. I was facing a life sentence if I disagreed with her, and frankly I didn’t. Seeing her supermodel face lift while reading was the saving grace of my days. We could never agree on the novel and continued to review opposing sides. Leggy was the melodramatic teen sobbing in the light of a PC. But her ending will be a classic comedy, where everyone ends in the divine.
“I took the razor & dug it into my arm. The blade sunk into the skin & it was so painful. Blood shot out like an explosion. I felt relief. Silver blade turned red & blood dripped onto the floor. Now I feel weird & disgusted. What is wrong with me?”
The novel was pistol gripped between my fingers; I had the passage memorised. It was the first time I had my addiction be represented.
“Derrrr I feel weird and disgusted.”
Leggy did her hillbilly impression as she interpretive danced the passage. It was mostly her pretending to slit her wrist. We didn’t eat lunch that break, we were too outraged and too amused.
“It’s such a fucking joke honestly, bringing up cutting yourself once and never again, she could have brought up him wearing long sleeves in the summertime once and it would have made sense.”
“Oop!” She pointed to my heat inappropriate undershirt, and I pointed to her trackies. “No legit, I was thinking that when they were at the pool together.”
“Oh my god, the fact she wrote that he wrote that it hurt him and that blood shot out.”
“Left for attention, down for results.”
I won my case against Forster’s top lawyer. I felt that justice had been served, ‘Destroying Avalon’ sentenced to bad novel. The expense it came at put a chip in my briefcase, Leggy wasn’t the girl on the pages.
I am sober 182 days 0 hours 0 minutes 10 seconds
My recovery app pinged me at 10:43. I made a flat faced smile at its glowing notification reading six months. I always felt conflicted leaving my notifications on, seeing the reminder that it was half a year since my last cut was like seeing your ex with their new, uglier partner. It was a victory, but you would rather them with you. My bedside table groaned as I opened it to retrieve my cutting scissors.
“You sure Leggy?” I held the holographic fabric scissors, using them to ennunciate my point.
“Yes. I am.”
She was determined, and so I began cutting for us. I held nugs between my fingers with surgical precision as to not mix my skin into the chop.
“Do you want to talk about anything before we smoke? Today was…” I packed my gado bong instead of finishing my sentence.
“I don’t think I can say anything else about today.”
The castle gates fell and I held her crumbling stones. She smelled like a pot after making caramel. Crusted sugar was pouring from her eyes, and I was helpless to clean it.
“You’re here now, with me.” I held her face to mine, “I love you and I promise I’ll keep you safe.” I sucked in my own snot and fear as I held up my pinkie.
“Let’s just fucking smoke.” Her pinkie interlocked with mine.
She had gotten off the school bus that day sobbing, muttering ‘code purple’. Our day was Leggy speaking to police officers and trusted teachers. The girl on the pages would have been brutally assaulted by her stepfather, coming to school with blood down her legs, a loopy manic mess. In the novel I, her white knight, would have brazenly brooded that I shall bash her stepfather. The girl in my world’s stepfather had gone through her underwear drawer ‘looking for the tv remote.’ He found a pot brownie I had gifted her. That morning Leggy, her stepfather and mother got into a fight over Christmas plans. Leggy didn’t care what they did after losing her pop. She didn’t understand how the fight progressed, only that the stepfather admitted to going through her underwear drawer, finding the contraband, and that he demanded that Leggy’s mother choose between who stays living in the house. Leggy, her own child, or a man who Leggy had been expressing concern for since puberty. Her mother stood in silence as her baby cried running to the bus and into my arms.
I am sober 273 days 20 hours 56 minutes 49 seconds
Leggy moved in with her mother’s best friend. She never gave me an answer as to why, she stopped giving me any kind of answers after code purple. She only sent me snapchats asking for advice meant for other people. Covid came and I only saw her through Instagram stories living with a man I never met. Lockdown also meant Kristy came home. She couldn’t go to Newcastle for ‘work’ anymore and so her meth-ology of parenting was in full swing, and I was the ball.
I am sober 0 days 3 hours 5 minutes 30 seconds
“I can’t fucking do this anymore, if I stay here anymore, I’m going to kill myself, I know it and I can’t stop it, please, I need you.”
“Gimme a sec.” Her voice muted as she spoke with her mother. “Hey…yeah it’s bad…is that…thank….” She spoke to the phone again, “She said yes, let me know when you’re coming.”
“Thank you, Genie.”
I am Sober
I sit in my pastel green New-York style apartment. The air around me is a haze of weed smoke and laughter from faces teenage me hadn’t yet met. The tips of my fingers are warm unlocking my phone. A message to Genie sits read, thanking her for dropping my items off after our friendship breakup. She was consumed by her galaxy that expanded until it became a black hole. Leggy’s account is sits on my screen. Strangers and sisters are smiling in pink silk dresses. The girl on the pages, her dress looks like the bouquet she’s holding. Her smile is one I never saw. ‘First sneak peek at the best day of my life. Officially Mrs Collins.’